Liverpool must not “shy away” from its historic involvement in the transatlantic slave trade, the organiser of the city’s 25th Slavery Remembrance Day commemoration has said.
Michelle Charters, who is leading Liverpool’s events for Unesco’s Slavery Remembrance Day, said it was important to address and recognise the city’s tarnished history.
“I think there’s absolutely tonnes of conversations that need to be had in terms of the impact we still feel from transatlantic slavery. We cannot hide from that and we cannot shy [away] from it,” said Charters, who was appointed the head of the International Slavery Museum (ISM) in January.
She added: “What we have to do is address it. It’s our history, it’s the UK’s history and instead of it being hidden, it needs to be recognised, remembered and reconciliation needs to happen.”
Liverpool, once known as the slave-trading capital of Britain, will mark the remembrance day on Friday, which coincides with the August 1791 uprising of enslaved people in Haiti (then Saint-Domingue, a French colony). The international event draws attention to the millions of lives affected by the transatlantic slave trade and its legacies.
Liverpool first coordinated commemorative events for the remembrance day in 1999, when the council issued a formal apology for its role in the transatlantic slave trade. According to National Museums Liverpool (NML), ships from Liverpool carried about 1.5 million Africans across the Atlantic in horrific conditions between 1700 and 1807.
This year, the ISM, in collaboration with NML, has organised workshops, lectures and a walk, which will culminate with a libation ceremony at Canning Dock. The quaysides and dry docks there were used to clean and repair ships used to traffic enslaved people across the Atlantic.
Maxine Brown, a community engagement manager at NML, said such events should be replicated across the country. “Definitely it should be spread across the UK … there’s a lot of people that are committed, from the very first Slavery Remembrance Day, they’ve not missed one,” she said.
Charters, who was a community activist for 40 years before leading the ISM, added: “It continues to be an important moment in our busy city, to pause and remember the many lives impacted by this abhorrent trade, as well as the legacies and achievements of people of the African diaspora.”
She added: “I want to make sure that what I’ve done, Maxine’s done, and many people in the communities in tackling the race and discrimination we face … that we’ve put real pillars of hope and real programmes of engagement.”
The ISM is thought to be the world’s first museum dedicated to slavery internationally. It will close in 2025 for three years to embark on a multimillion pound redevelopment paid for by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
Charters said the redevelopment would create a research centre where historians and scholars could carry out work that fed into the museum and informed work around the world.
She said she continues to be shocked by discoveries related to the transatlantic slave trade. “To be quite truthful, 30 years later, I’m sitting here and I am still shocked by the constant uncovering of our history. That is why I said there is no full stop to transatlantic slavery,” she said.
“We will never ever be able to really, even for us as an institution that’s been committed to transatlantic slavery … I truly don’t believe we’re ever going to fully uncover what has been lost to us, what has been taken from us and what we have been denied in terms of our heritage, our culture, our traditions.”
The leader of Liverpool city council, Liam Robinson, said: “Twenty-five years ago the city council rightly apologised for its shameful role in the transatlantic slave trade – publicly putting on record our commitment to remembering, educating and fighting against racism and inequality.
“Slavery Remembrance Day has now become a significant date in our cultural calendar, a time when we can reflect on this remorseful part of our heritage and honour the memory of those enslaved Africans who suffered and died.”
